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Polybius appears to have coined the term in his 2nd century BC work Histories (6.4.6).[1] He uses it to name the "pathological" version of popular rule—in opposition to the good version, which he refers to as democracy. There are numerous mentions of the word "ochlos" in the Talmud (where "ochlos" refers to anything from "mob", "populace", to "armed guard"), as well as in Rashi, a Jewish commentary on the Bible. The word is recorded in English since 1584, derived from the Frenchochlocratie (1568), which stems from the original Greek okhlokratia, from okhlos ("mob") and kratos (meaning "rule, power, strength").

Ancient Greek political thinkers regarded ochlocracy as one of the three "bad" forms of government (tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy) as opposed to the three "good" forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy). They distinguished "good" and "bad" according to whether the government form would act in the interest of the whole community ("good") or in the exclusive interests of a group or individual at the expense of justice ("bad").

This (Polybian) terminology for forms of state in ancient Greek philosophy has become customary. Aristotle termed democracy as "polity" (sometimes translated as "republic", which confusingly is used by other Aristotle-translators for "aristocracy", instead) while giving the name of "democracy" to ochlocracy.

An "ochlocrat" is one who is an advocate or partisan of ochlocracy. It also may be used as an adjective ("ochlocratic" or "ochlocratical").

The threat of "mob rule" to a democracy is restrained by ensuring that the rule of law protects minorities or individuals against short-term demagoguery or moral panic.[2] Although considering how laws in a democracy are established or repealed by the majority, the protection of minorities by rule of law is questionable. Some authors, like Bosnian political theoretician Hasanović, connect the emergence of ochlocracy in democratic societies with the decadence of democracy in neoliberalism where "the democratic role of the people has been reduced mainly to the electoral process".[3]

Historians[who?] often comment on mob rule as a factor in the rise of Rome and its maintenance,[dubious – discuss] as the city of Rome itself was large—between 100,000 and 250,000 citizens—while the aristocracy and even military was very small by comparison to the citizenry.[vague] Lapses in this control often led to loss of official power (and often enough, the lives of the officials)—most notably in the reign of Commodus when Cleander unwisely used the Praetorian Guard against a mob which had come to call for his head. As historian Edward Gibbon relates it:

The people...demanded with angry clamors the head of the public enemy. Cleander, who commanded the Praetorian Guards, ordered a body of cavalry to sally forth and disperse the seditious multitude. The multitude fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain, and many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered the streets their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and darts from the roofs and windows of the houses. The footguards, who had long been jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of the Praetorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The tumult became a regular engagement and threatened a general massacre. The Praetorians at length gave way, oppressed with numbers; and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled violence against the gates of the palace, where Commodus lay dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war...Commodus started from his dream of pleasure and commanded that the head of Cleander should be thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle instantly appeased the tumult...[4]

This followed a previous incident in which the legions of Britain had demanded and received the death of Perennis, the prior administrator. The mob thus realized that it had every chance of success.

In 1837 Abraham Lincoln wrote about lynching and "the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country—the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers of justice".[6]